Nursery theme

Since it's now ten weeks after he was born, I figured I should finally get around to posting pictures of Carter's nursery. I chose a pirate theme and fell in love with the idea before I tried to find accessories to go with what I pictured. This meant I had to end up making almost everything!! I pinned a pattern for crib sheets but luckily found a red pin stripe one that is perfect and a few backup pirate themes ones to match. I skipped the bumper and other bedding pieces because last go round they were never used!

Side view of the sail and mobile.

Pirate fabric framed with his name.

Ribbon bed skirt, pirate mobile, and sail complete with mast and cuckoo's nest.

Detailed mobile view.

Updated artwork post here.

Super Third Birthday

Nolan's super third birthday party was this past weekend. He had such a great time and is talking about it every day. This year I did a superhero theme. It was lots of work for both me and Tim but so worth it to see the look on our little boy's face.

Tim smoked the meat ahead of time so we had amazing BBQ (chicken and pork). I made 80 cupcakes with some help from visiting family. That was a last minute addition since the birthday boy insisted. I planned to only do an ice cream sundae bar complete with lots of toppings. However, whenever I asked Nolan what he wanted for his birthday he told me cake, balloons, and yellow presents. He talked about cake all the time so I couldn't not have cake for him. Gluten free cupcakes (for him) and funfetti ones for everyone else to the rescue!

All the children including the 4 newborns present got their own custom superhero cape to join in the play!

I planned a few fun games. Shoot the bad guys with silly string, pin the badge on Super Nolan, and deactivate the bombs. The kids LOVED wearing the blindfold I made and trying to stick the post it notes to Nolan's large picture. Everyone wanted to play it more than once. The bomb game was hilarious. Tim and our buddy Ben dropped 45 black balloons for the kids to pop. Our grass had other plans and immediately started randomly popping them. The kids were running around in a frenzy thinking they were actually popping the balloons. Adorable! Then since they are so young and helpful they made a game out of cleaning up the yard!

Shoot the villains (with silly string)

Pin the superhero badge on Nolan

Deactivate the bombs!!

Stash Update

New baby means new diapers, right? Well, sort of. I haven't been able to rein myself in entirely but for the most part we are able to completely use the diapers I bought for Nolan. Just one of the many reasons cloth is so great.

I did just recently try out a brand new diaper. My friend sells them and they are called Tender Tushies (TT). She has skinny kiddos too so it was great to see how they worked on her little ones ahead of time. I got my first three in the mail last week and they already fit Carter. He's able to fit into most of my one size diapers now but they still tend to wick or leak at the legs because they don't quite go tiny enough there. Not the case with the Tender Tushies. The TT's have an extra thigh area snap that helps keep them snug fitting where he needs it the most, around his skinny chicken legs! They also have crossover snaps at the top which let you tighten much smaller around the waist. of course I haven't yet mentioned the best part! They come is super cute prints. Right now Carter has trucks, sports them, plus soccer balls he can wear to cheer on his brother when he starts munchkin soccer in a month.

So here is my updated current diaper stash. This doesn't, of course, count the numerous dozens of prefolds and their covers I have too.

22 BumGenius One Size (3.0 and 4.0)
3 Happy Heineys
3 WAHM (work at home mom diapers)
7 Kawaii GoodNights
2 Kawaii
2 BabyKicks
1 Grovia AIO (all in one)
1 Itty Bitty Tutto
4 BumGenius Flip Covers and many inserts
3 Tender Tushies
4 Fuzzi Buns

Yay! Love our cloth and so happy to see it getting used again!

Kitchen Kollage

My newest home decor project is finished and I just love it!!! Our kitchen eat in area was pretty blank and is such a visible area in the house. I wanted something artsy but not too overboard. I might have went overboard though!

I got the idea to feature pictures of our family using the dining area. What's cuter than a messy baby or toddler? I searched my thousands of pictures for the ones of messy Nolan, picked out my favorite, and converted them to black and white. Avoiding the color helps keep the collage looking more like decoration or artwork than just another area I'm hanging pictures of my baby! It almost blends in and until you actually concentrate on the individual pictures you don't even realize it's of our messy little boy.

After finishing the hanging, Tim says "It's kinda creepy having so many pictures of Nolan." Eventually, half of these will be replaced with pictures of messy Carter. None of him eating now though as I figured I'd spare my dining table the view of my little one on my boob! We'll wait until he does solids! Don't worry, color is coming in on the other side once I finish that project!

Now for the how to... this wall is very large so I went with 5" by 7" pictures. I simply ordered them from walmart.com which was cheapest. I wouldn't normally print photos I wanted to hang from the non photography sites because quality and color calibration is so off but with this it wasn't as important. The frames are wooden and from the dollar store! It couldn't get any cheaper and they are definitely adequate for the job. Thanks to my wonderful hubby for hanging all of these in my exact pattern!

Meal Planner!

I've been slowly completing projects in the house. The nursery is 95% done and wall decorating has begun. A few weeks back I made our meal planner/calendar. I wanted something nice but easily accessible. Here is what I came up with.

I found great large frames at a  local church garage sale. This one didn't even need repainting! I then took apart the frame and covered the artwork inside in white paper. This hid the print. My outer layer is burlap and both it and the paper are secured to the back of the artwork. To section out the board into the seven days of the week, I used black ribbon also secured on the back (pinned then glued). JoAnns sells nice vinyl letter stickers so I found a font I liked to label the days of the week. Once all of that was done, the frame backing was put back in place and wah-la!

I now have a write on wipe off meal planner that matches our kitchen nicely! Because everything is behind the glass, it makes it easy to wipe off and clean. Another plus is that it looks like a piece of furniture not just an organization tool.

Allergies

As you know if you've read my posts before, Nolan is gluten intolerant. He does not have celiac's but he definitely reacts to gluten. Carter is doing great on the weight gain front which is much different than his brother. He was, however, having some issues.

He started projectile vomiting almost daily. No fun for either of us. He was also very gaggy most of the night. You'd hear him grunt and grumble and then choke and wake himself. I quickly thought reflux but was hoping it wouldn't be something he'd need daily medication at such a young age for. We also experienced body and diaper rash and congestion.

After a few days of the projectile vomiting, I took the doctor's suggestion and cut out dairy. Two weeks later though, he had improved a bit but then was starting to decline again. Last Friday we had an impromtu appointment to discuss everything  and get baby some help.

At 5 weeks 1 day C weighed in at 9lbs 6 oz. That was up from 8lbs 3 oz at 2 weeks 5 days. It turns out he likely isn't having reflux from over acidic stomach acid but from positioning and overeating. To combat that, we purchased the Fisher Price Rock n Play sleeper which lets him sleep safely at a 45 degree incline. I'm not sure if it's a fluke but the first night he slept 6 hours straight! Second night he did all 4 hour stretches. That's much better then the two hours he was doing. We are also trying out pacifiers hoping he'll suckle those instead of always me! He would want to suckle then get upset when milk came out and he was already full. Crazy baby!

As for the rashes, our doctor suspects some sort of allergy/intolerance to something I'm eating. Since dairy doesn't seem to be the issue or possibly not the only issue, I'm doing a full elimination diet for him. This means no corn, soy, dairy, nuts, eggs, or gluten for the next three weeks. Then I'll slowly add one in at a time every week or so. I'm keeping a full journal of everything I eat/drink and charting his reactions, symptoms, and sleep habits. Hopefully I'll see improvement at the end of the 3 weeks and be able to figure out what is going on. All I can say is dairy elimination was hard but removing all of this is torture!

Back to School

Our TotSchool started this week. If you remember, we did this last year and blogged about it a few times. Basically we follow a preschool curriculum at home (this year it's a program a few of us in the group wrote) and meet once a week together for a group class and then every other week or so for a fun field trip event too.

Nolan was so excited to go to school yesterday. As we were driving there and I told him we were going to the park first, he told me over and over again that no he would rather go to school first. He kept asking for his backpack and to ride on a bus. Poor kiddo needs to visit his grandma so he can explore a school bus! Let's hope this enthusiasm continues once he actually gets to school.

This week we are focusing on the letter M, color red, shape circle, and the overall theme of All About Me. Nolan started using scissors and is obsessed with them. He asks to do "cut, cut" constantly. Lots of fun crafts, art projects, and stories being read! Here are a few pictures from our fun today.

"Hmm...which circle should I pick next?"